Dr. Sandy Chang
The telescope he received for his 10th birthday propelled Sandy Chang, M.D., Ph.D., toward becoming an award-winning physician-scientist at M. D. Anderson.
The telescope he received for his 10th birthday propelled Sandy Chang, M.D., Ph.D., toward becoming an award-winning physician-scientist at M. D. Anderson.
The gift allowed him to view the belts of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn before he designed and built a larger telescope that took second place in the 1984 Westinghouse Science Talent Search and provided a college scholarship. His early fascination with astronomy evolved into a keen interest in the molecular mechanisms of human diseases and motivated him to earn a Ph.D. at The Rockefeller Institute and a medical degree from Cornell University Medical College.
After a residency in clinical pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Chang came to M. D. Anderson five years ago. Since then, he has advanced understanding of the role of telomere function in senescence (aging) and cancer. He wants to know how telomeres, the repetitive DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes, maintain genome stability.
“When we fully understand telomeres, then we’ll appreciate how they protect us as well as contribute to both the aging process and cancer. In time, I think it will be important to assess telomere status prior to planning targeted therapies for cancer patients,” explains Chang, associate professor in the Departments of Cancer Genetics and Hematopathology.
Chang’s laboratory generated the first mouse model of human Werner Syndrome to probe the interaction between telomere dysfunction, genomic instability in aging and development of cancer. A rare disease that strikes adults in their 30s, Werner Syndrome is marked by premature aging and early onset of cancer. Most recently, his group discovered a key protein that is essential to maintain telomere stability.
In addition to his research, Chang directs the T. C. Hsu Molecular Cytogenetics Laboratory, an institutional core facility he developed to help colleagues perform experiments. He teaches future scientists at The University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Baylor College of Medicine’s Huffington Center for Aging in Houston.
During 2007, Chang was one of three junior faculty chosen for an M. D. Anderson Faculty Scholar Award for outstanding achievements and dedication to excellence. He also received the Academy of Clinical Laboratory Physicians and Sciences’ Ellis S. Benson Award, recognizing meritorious accomplishments by a young specialist in laboratory medicine.